WARSAW: Shipyard workers in northern Poland on Saturday put back into place the metal statue of a prominent Solidarity-era priest that protesters toppled amid allegations that he sexually abused minors.

Karol Guzikiewicz, head of the Solidarity union at the Gdansk shipyard, said the statue should stay up until the allegations against the late Monsignor Henryk Jankowski are clarified. The workers did not seek the city’s permission to put the statue back near Jankowski’s former parish in Gdansk.

The monument recognises Jankowski’s staunch support for the Solidarity pro-democracy movement in the 1980s, which was born out of the shipyard workers’ protest.

An investigation into allegations that Jankowski sexually abused young boys was discontinued in 2003, but recently at least two other people have alleged to Polish media they were abused by Jankowski as minors.

Published in Dawn, February 24th, 2019